Comment: Spurious Causation in a Historical Process: War and Bureaucratization in Early China

A comment on Edgar Kiser & Yong Cai's article, "War and Bureaucratization in Qin China" (2003), agrees that war played a role in China's early partially bureaucratic system but challenges some of their key arguments. Kiser & Cai point to large-scale warfare during the spring/autumn of 772-481 BCE as the cause of bureaucratization; however, most wars during that period were small & brief with large-scale warfare not emerging until between 317 & 256 BCE, after China had already experienced two waves of bureaucratization. The notion that warfare weakened the aristocracy's power is also challenged, citing historical evidence that indicates warfare enhanced aristocratic power in the state of Jin. China's first wave of bureaucratization is said to have resulted from the need to control expanded territories by appointing officials to manage new administrative units while the second wave of bureaucratization was triggered by the feudal crisis. It is concluded that warfare was not the only mechanism that facilitated the rise of state bureaucracy & relationships between war & society are not unidirectional. 13 References. J. Lindroth